An Empirical Taxonomy of Strategic Silence and Rhetorical Amplification in Corporate Sustainability Strategy

• Abiodun Okunola

  Ladoke Akintola University Technology

  Author

Corporate sustainability communication has evolved into a complex strategic domain wherein firms simultaneously amplify certain environmental claims while strategically silencing others. Despite growing scholarly attention to greenwashing and impression management, no empirically validated taxonomy exists that systematically classifies the configurations of strategic silence and rhetorical amplification across corporate sustainability disclosures. This study addresses this gap through a mixed-methods design combining computational text analysis of sustainability reports from 342 publicly traded firms (2018–2024) with panel regression modeling. Using latent class analysis, we identify four distinct strategic communication archetypes: Amplifiers (high disclosure volume, low substantive specificity), Silencers (selective omission of material environmental metrics), Integrators (balanced disclosure with verifiable outcomes), and Minimalists (low disclosure across all dimensions). The taxonomy achieves 89.4% classification accuracy in held-out validation. Fixed-effects regression reveals that firms with poor environmental performance are significantly more likely to employ Silencer or Amplifier strategies (β = 0.342, p < 0.001), while market capitalization positively predicts Amplifier classification (β = 0.197, p < 0.05). The findings provide a validated framework for regulators and stakeholders to diagnose corporate sustainability communication strategies and offer theoretical extensions to impression management and strategic silence literatures.

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Copyright (c) 2026 Abiodun Okunola (Author)

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